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Monday, March 13, 2017

Rant #1,860: Looking For a Game Unit

In preparation for the blizzard we are supposed to have tomorrow, my wife, son and I went out on Saturday and looked for a video game unit for my son.

I know that for my son, this is equally as important as getting the snow shovels and salt ready for the mother of all storms that we are supposed to get tomorrow, so we went about looking for the latest, greatest game unit for him.

Nintendo Switch came out on March 3, and it promptly sold out in minutes. From what we heard, many stores then received a second shipment of the unit on March 4, and then, that was that. They have not heard from Nintendo since, and they don't really know when new units will be available.

The Switch is a little different than other gaming units, as it is played on your TV at home, and then, if you are in the middle of a game but have to do other things, you can take the detachable screen with you and continue playing the game apart from the TV-attached unit.

Anyway, we went from store to store in the afternoon, and no one has the Switch, no one knows when it will be coming in, and it appears it is another instance of gamesmanship by the video game manufacturers, who only release a certain number of new gaming units at a time to pique the interest of the public to the max.

I remember that my family got caught up in this mania several years ago, with the release of Nintendo Wii.

My son wanted this gaming unit more than anything in the world, and I went with him from store to store looking for this thing.

There were rumors that certain stores had it, and we would be there before the store opened, and found that these were only rumors, and the store had nothing.

And it wasn't just us; we always met others who had heard the same thing, and we waited with them, only to be disappointed when we found that the rumors were just rumors.

We traveled all around in search of the Wii, and finally, after months of looking, we got one of only two such units that one store had.

Now, we are in the same situation with the Switch, and I have already told my son that there is no way that I am going to go through the same thing again--we are both older, and quite frankly, I don't have the patience I once had for such situations.

When we got home, we even went on the Internet, and nothing was found there either, other than people selling this gaming unit for ridiculous prices on eBay, some double what the unit actually retails for, which is $299.99.

My son would probably pay whatever was asked--he is paying for this thing this time around with his own money, money he earned at his job--but I won't let him pay exorbitant prices for something that will probably be passe in a few years, when the next latest and greatest gaming unit comes out.

It just isn't worth it.

He will get the Switch sometime down the line, but I guess he will have to wait for it.

In the meantime, let's get those shovels ready, because we are supposed to have a real winner of a day tomorrow.